Blog of Dr. Miland Brown that features different aspects of world history. Not everything can be covered but sites dealing with any historical issue or topic are possible future posts. Also includes sites which discuss teaching history. Dr. Brown is an academic in North America.

Friday, September 22, 2006

The Carnival of Bad History #9

Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth?Cicero

God alone knows the future, but only a historian can alter the past.

Ambrose Bierce

Welcome to the Carnival of Bad History #9! I am Miland Brown of the World History Blog and I am pleased to host this edition of the only carnival on the Web which seeks to expose bad history on a regular basis. My thanks to Jonathan Dresner for allowing me to host this carnival.

Swift was not alone in questioning the historical value of this movie. Edward Cline in Pathetic 911 wrote, "That essentially describes The Path to 9/11: a shrunken, myopic lens focused on moment-by-moment actions and incidents, examining endless minutiae adding up to non-judgmental conclusions."

Curzon of Coming Anarchy in First Contact disputed the Disney version of European-Native American first contact as depicted in Pocahontas. He also cites Jared Diamond from Collapse to explore the issue. Some of the people who commented on the post questioned his citation of the Japanese encounter with Commodore Perry as an example of a first contact.

Brian Dirck of A. Lincoln Blog took issue with the current President Bush comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln in Dubbya's Abe (again). Are references to Christianity less appropriate for a president today than they were in the 19th century?

Art work can sometimes pass around bad history. Tim Abbott of Walking the Berkshires in Can You Spot the Anachronism? argued that Don Troiani added an invasive species (Japanese Barberry) in a painting of the Battle of Gettysburg that did not appear in Pennsylvania until later.

When can the tale of a supposed time traveller be consider bad history? It is when the first falsifiable prediction of the man proves to be untrue as I noted in John Titor, Fake Time Traveller. How come the American Civil War of 2004-2008 is not happening? Some commenters to the post argued that Titor did not mean war in the same sense historians (and almost everyone else) use the word.

And with that look to the future, I end this carnival and I thank you for visiting. My thanks also to the many people who submitted posts for consideration. I added every one of them except for the cleverly disguised medical splog post. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Bad History using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

Speaking of bad history, one always needs to be very careful to take what docents or guides say at museums.

I toured the old Illinois State House in Springfield two summers ago. The guide gave a tour of the building which is where Lincon gave his famous "House Divided" speech. She claimed that Lincoln was 54 years old when he died, when Lincoln enthusiasts know he was 56. I gently corrected her, but she "corrected" me back and told me I was wrong. After the tour, I asked her to do some basic math. :-) Let's see..born in 1809 and died in 1865. hmmm....